iv. the cerberus project

Background color
Font
Font size
Line height

chapter 4 - the cerberus project

➳ ➳ ➳

Female members of Mount Weather had already come in to strip Dakota of her clothing and lock both of her wrists to nearby poles, forcing her arms to spread out like the wings of an eagle. Once they were done, the women left her in a small shower-like room and shut the door, allowing the darkness to immediately elope her. The only source of light available was coming from the red, lit-up "Exit" sign.

Dakota stood both naked and afraid, as she listened to the loud noises coming from beyond the walls of the cold and wet room. She couldn't see anything and so she began to look about the room frantically, waiting for something to happen.

At that moment, a sudden blinding light showed a spotlight on her from above, and she could hear a crackling voice blaring from the overhead speaker.

"Begin the process of decontamination." Dr. Tsing announced.

Dakota had come to learn that, Dr. Tsing, was the name of the same woman who she had previously attacked while in the reaper tunnels.

The men had ended up blindfolding her once more after that incident, so she wasn't able to see her surroundings when they brought her into the room. She had just assumed that she was somewhere in one of the distant and secure areas of Mount Weather.

Immediately after Dr. Tsing's announcement, Dakota noticed large, black hydro-jets moving upwards from the walls on each side of her. They aimed directly at her exposed body, and instantly shot out boiling water at her.

As soon as the scorching water reached her skin, the grounder girl instantly recoiled and screamed out at the top of her lungs. Normally, if something burned, you would instinctively flinch away from it. However, Dakota was forced to endure the burning liquid because she was unable to escape the restraints keeping her in place.

The burning water endlessly tortured her flesh, and she began to tremble ferociously from the agonizing pain. The jets moved around aimlessly, making sure they hit every nook and cranny of her scarred and tattooed body.

What made matters worse, was the fact that the hot steam rising from the water surrounded Dakota in one huge, and smothering white cloud. It caused her to start having trouble breathing due to the miserable combination of both heat and pain.

The jets continued to move about on her body, making sure to rid every possible dirt and germ off of her until she was spotless.

At last, when the boiling water had finally shut off, the grounder girl was surprised to hear the heart-wrenching sobs that had been escaping her lips for the past couple of minutes.

Yes, the water had only been on for a merely short two minutes, but to Dakota, those dreadful two minutes were one hundred and twenty seconds too long.

Her vision was temporarily blurred by the warm tears that continued to flow from her eyes, however, as she looked down, nothing could hinder her from still noticing her now brightly-reddened skin. Her tears began to pour even harder, as she caught sight of the multiple blisters already forming from her second-degree burns.

Dakota was no doubt in lingering pain, however, she had naively assumed that the decontamination process was over. She had hoped that the process was supposed to be quick and that someone would come in at any given moment to release her.

But of course, she was wrong.

Right after she had caught her breath from the traumatizing hydro-jets, they had moved again. Only this time, they were replaced with white-colored jets, that wasted no time in dousing Dakota with a thick and clear-like substance.

At first, she had welcomed the newly formed substance as it met her skin. For the first few seconds, the clear liquid contrasted with her hot skin and almost acted as a cooling agent or remedy for her burns.

However, the small amount of relief that Dakota had begun to feel from the liquid was ultimately short-lived. Within the blink of an eye, the once-cooling substance seeped into her pores and began to sting and burn even worse than the boiling water had.

She released an extremely long, ear-piercing scream, that was so loud, you could even hear the vibrations from every sound wave that traveled through the air. Her body was now ablaze, and to her, it had felt like her skin was on fire. She was just waiting for the moment when her hot flesh would rip apart and bleed profusely because that's what it had felt like it was going to do any minute.

After the white jets ran out of liquid, they quickly switched back to the boiling, black jets which Dakota had already attempted to prepare herself for. And when the hot water had met her skin for the final time, Dakota still cried out. However, she decided to embrace the agonizingly high temperature of the water, if it meant that her body was being thoroughly cleansed of whatever clear substance it was that they had doused her with.

After another five minutes, when the hydro-jets were completely shut off, Dakota watched exhaustedly as the hot water puddled at her bare feet, while she was quivering in excruciating pain.

And as the water slowly circled down the rustic drain, Dakota decided that all of her pride and dignity had just gone down with it.

➳ ➳ ➳

After the decontamination process was over, Dakota was brought to a lab, where a couple of doctors forced multiple shots into her arms and shoved various pills down her throat. She was then visually inspected more, almost like bacteria being examined under a microscope.

When they officially deemed her clean enough to enter the purified atmosphere of Mount Weather, she was only then given a sports bra and sweatpants and led to a separate location.

When they reached the new room, they immediately forced her onto a gurney and strapped her down with chains, so that she was unable to move any of her limbs.

At this point, Dakota's heart was lost somewhere in the deep pit of her stomach, as anxiety slowly crept throughout every inch of her. Her nerves only heightened, when an unfamiliar man let his presence be known as he walked through the door.

She didn't know it at the time, but that man was Cage Wallace, and his father was the current president of Mount Weather.

He held a large syringe in his hands that was filled with a dark red liquid, and he approached Dakota in awe.

"I see why Tsing chose you." He stated, pushing a loose strand of hair from Dakota's face to get a better look at her. "High-quality female candidates are hard to find. You just might end up being one of my most proudest accomplishments." He chuckled, ignoring the distraught girl lying in front of him.

Cage then walked around Dakota and inserted the syringe into her neck, where he quickly injected the red liquid into her.

"Many refer to this as the Red Drug." He said, placing the syringe back onto the silver tray. "You will soon grow to be very addicted to it, and you will crave it when it eventually runs out of your system."

As he spoke, Dakota yelled out in pain as the veins in her forehead began to protrude. She grunted as her eyes rolled back into her head and her whole body began to sweat and convulse.

However, Dakota's screams didn't even seem to faze Cage at all, as he went to leave the room.

"Don't worry," He spoke to the young girl, over his shoulder. "The first dose is always the worst."

With that, he smirked lightly before walking out of the door. Leaving a shaking Dakota, in the dark and lonely room.

➳ ➳ ➳

It had been almost two hours later and Dakota was already feeling the beginning effects of the red drug. The pain that she felt in her body was unbearable and she had a massive headache that would cause her to constantly slip in and out of consciousness every few minutes. When she was awake for a certain amount of time, she would only continue to hallucinate or convulse repeatedly.

As she continued to lay helplessly strapped onto the uncomfortable gurney, she could almost feel the burning flow of the red liquid swimming throughout her system, making it seem like her veins would burst at any given moment.

And for the first time in a while, Dakota hadn't found herself thinking at all about Octavia or Lincoln and where they were right now. No one other than herself was taking up her thoughts for a change, and nothing else was on her mind except for the idea that "death" didn't seem like a bad option anymore.

Of course, she didn't want to die or give up so easily. I mean, she couldn't possibly think of leaving her brother and her lover so soon. She would even feel bad leaving Lexa after they had just recently reestablished their friendship.

But Dakota had come to realize that she was probably never going to make it out of here alive, and she had decided that she would do just about anything, to be able to escape this agonizing and unending torture.

____

A while later, Cage had returned, but Dakota had found herself unable to recognize him at first. She saw the form of the man, and she could make out every detail of him. However, her brain didn't fully make the connection as to who he was. For just a single moment, Dakota had lost all her sense of recognition. After she finally had recognized him again, and the setting in which she was at, her heartbeat began to rise tremendously.

At this point, the drug was still in her system, but it was slowly warring off. And as it did so, Dakota didn't like the painful state that it had left her in. She felt more weak and vulnerable, and her mind began to consume her with tortuous thoughts and feelings. She also began to feel an indescribable pain as the drug faded away, and it made her realize that she didn't want to feel like that. She just wanted to feel numb, and that's exactly what the drug did for her.

When she did have it in her system, she found herself not thinking about the life she was recently deprived of with her brother and friends, or the unnecessary guilt that weighed down on her shoulders from not being with them.

She was no longer feeling the added pressure of trying to prove herself to her people without disappointing them. And surprisingly, the effects of the drug also made her feel more strong in a way, and her body loved every second of it.

Cage walked closer to her and connected two metal bands to her wrists. He then reached into his back pocket and took out the syringe containing the red drug.

Upon seeing this, Dakota's eyes widened and she began to struggle on the gurney that she was still strapped to. The only difference between now and two hours ago was the fact that Dakota had previously tried to escape the restraints so that she could avoid the drug. But now, she had found herself trying to escape the restraints to attempt to retrieve the drug.

"You see? I told you it got better." Cage chuckled. "Your body's already craving it." He lifted the syringe and injected the red liquid into her neck, once more.

As the drug slowly seeped into her bloodstream, Dakota instantly felt the beginning effects of it. It eased her mind, however, her body began to feel more aggressive and uncooperative, as she grunted and tried to break free from the restraints.

Seeing her reaction to the drug only made Cage's heart swell up with pride as he observed her further. Without wasting any more time, he held up a tone generator and turned it on, causing a loud shrieking sound to flood the room. It was both irritating and obnoxious and Dakota immediately recognized it as the same sound that the mountain men used on the reapers in the tunnel.

Cage then looked up to the surveillance camera in the room, and notified whoever was watching to begin the next part of phase one. Immediately after his signal, electricity engulfed the wristbands that Dakota was wearing and she suddenly felt painful shockwaves shooting up and throughout her body, that practically lifted her from the gurney.

She grunted and began to shake and convulse involuntarily, as Cage walked around her and took note of all her reactions. To him, it was almost like she was a newly discovered artifact that he was eager to get his hands on. He was extremely fascinated with her, and he couldn't wait to see what she would soon become.

As the torturous pain from the wristbands continued to wreak havoc on Dakota, her body eventually couldn't take it anymore and she was about to pass out any minute from all the agony. But just when she was about to lose consciousness, the electric shocks came to a sudden halt, and her body fell limp back onto the gurney.

"Fifteen seconds." Cage noted, clearly astonished at her body's level of endurance. "That's almost a record."

He then made his way back to the door and addressed his colleagues.

"This one's a thoroughbred." He stated, referring to Dakota. "Up her dosage and continue shockwaves every two hours. When she begins to fear the tone generator, we move on to phase two."

They all nodded as Cage left, and closed the metal door to ensure that the grounder girl was secured in the room.

When he was officially gone, Dakota finally let out the sobs that she had been holding in ever since the man had stepped foot into the room. She didn't want to let Cage see her in such a weak state, but what she didn't realize was that Cage was highly intrigued by her perseverance. And when she didn't show her weakness or cry in front of him, it only fueled him to continue with the program.

As she lay there, feeling nothing but fatigue and enervation, she came to the horrifying realization that she was indeed, being steadily transformed into what she assumed was a reaper.

She was confused by the logic behind it at first, but then she remembered the stories from her old clan.
For many years, warriors from her village would always go missing or would be taken by the mountain men and never be returned. She used to believe that they were eventually killed, but maybe some of them weren't. It made sense to her if her theory was true, but what she couldn't understand was why the residents of Mount Weather felt the need to do something so merciless to innocent warriors.

Dakota tried to think of anyone in particular who could get her mind off of her approaching fate, but she struggled with trying to remember the faces of her brother and her lover. She couldn't even remember their names at this point. All she knew was that she had loved ones somewhere on the outside of these walls. She just couldn't remember anything about them no matter how hard she tried.

Dakota let her tears stream down her face as she felt her inner self slowly dwindling, with every passing minute. Her eyes were heavy but she was too scared to close her eyelids because she feared that when she woke up, she wouldn't be able to recognize herself, or the monstrosity that she was slowly starting to become.

She wondered if she would eventually grow to develop deformities such as red eyes, warts, and horns like some of the other reapers had. They were truly ugly creatures, however, she now knew that they were once beautiful members of Trikru and other nearby clans, and that made her heart ache.

She feared that no one would be able to recognize her either and that she would soon be forgotten like the other grounders that were taken.

What Dakota was unable to see, was that her eyes were already starting to change. Except they weren't changing to red like some of the other reapers' eyes were. Hers was turning a golden yellow, which was a result of the red drug reacting with the female chromosomes of her DNA.

And as she slowly lost consciousness, she had every right to be fearful of what she was about to become, because the next time that she would open her eyes, Dakota wouldn't be herself anymore.

➳ ➳ ➳

Later on in the day, after Dakota had received a few more injections, Cage entered her room once more with the tone generator. He lifted the device and turned it on, allowing its high-pitched sound to surround the area. Dakota immediately flinched from the sound and began fighting her restraints, and that's when Cage knew that she now had a fear of the tone generator.

"Phase one is complete." He happily announced to his peers. "Start phase two."

Immediately following his orders, one of the other men dragged another grounder wearing restraintsΒ  into the room with Dakota. He too, had been injected several times with the red drug, and now he was on the verge of fully becoming a Reaper just like she was.

If her mind wasn't already estranged, she would have had no problem recognizing the grounder as, Adrian, who was a former member of Trikru. But sadly, Dakota wasn't Dakota anymore. She was now someoneβ€”or rather somethingβ€”completely different. A monster in the making. And so, she was unable to identify him.

Cage then grabbed a new syringe, filled with the red drug, and held it up for both of the grounders to look at. The two grounders who were now addicted to the drug, began grunting and struggling to break free to get hold of it.

"One dose." Cage stated, smiling sinisterly. "Who wants it more?"

He set the syringe down on the ground between Dakota and Adrian and turned on the tone generator to distract them both as men unlocked them from their restraints.

Cage and the rest of his men, quickly left the room leaving both of the newly developed reapers to fight for the next dosage. Whoever was the first one to kill the other and retrieve the syringe, completed the final phase of the Cerberus Program.

Dakota and Adrian wasted no time rushing to grab the syringe, but Dakota was just a bit quicker. She grabbed it and raised it to her neck, however, a belligerent Adrian knocked it right out of her hands and shoved her body into the wall.

He wrapped his rough hands around her throat in an attempt to strangle her, and she did her best to fight out of his grip, but Adrian was much stronger than she was.

On instinct, the newly aggressive version of Dakota raised her hands and gauged Adrian's eyes with both of her thumbs. The reaper grunted and released her, and in return, she punched him and kicked him in his gut.

He fell to the ground from the force of the impact, and a normal Dakota would've allowed that to be the end of the fight. However, she was far from normal now, and her gold eyes were enough to prove that.

The reaper girl jumped on top of Adrian and began throwing punches left and right to any part of his body that was open to attack. They both were bleeding at this point, but Adrian was bleeding more and more as Dakota beat his face with such hostility and venom in her eyes.

Deciding to deliver one final move, she did something that her old self would have probably never done. She placed her arms around Adrian's neck, and swiftly twisted it in a way that made his neck snap, killing him instantly.

The old Dakota would have immediately felt remorse after murdering someone, especially with such

You are reading the story above: TeenFic.Net